Louis Gossett

“Some Marine units actually use 'An Officer and a Gentleman' in their training programs.”

“After the Academy Award, well, I was left with a lot of time on my hands. I thought I'd get a lot of offers - and they didn't come.”

“George Clooney and Brad Pitt, with those 'Oceans' films they do, they get to work together, make a whole lot of money, and make a major film statement. Imagine if once a year, myself, Denzel Washington, Laurence Fishburne, James Earl Jones, we did some relevant film together to make a statement.”

“It's presumptuous for us to think we are the only beings in the cosmos.”

“My father's best friend, Georgie Terra, was an Italian guy. The children and the cousins and nieces and nephews were children of the Mafia. Those were the children he grew up with. If you want to go to a safe neighborhood, go to where the Mafia is.”

“I grew up with all my cousins. The men worked, and the older women raised us - my mother, my aunt, my grandmother. My great-grandmother was the matriarch, and sometimes there were 30 of us.”

“Sometimes I believe that the reason I have been able to do such exemplary work on the screen is because this is the only place I can be free, neither censured nor judged.”

“You never know when what you do in the arts means something to people, and you never really know if you've been received well.”

“My father was adopted. He grew up in the Italian household.”

“We are born with freedom and hope, but often that's dashed because of our color. But in school, I'd already been taught that no one could tell me that you can't do something because you're black.”

“You have a bout with death, things that touch your mortality, when that happens, all that bling-bling gets thrown away because all you've got is you and God.”

“Working on the ABC movie 'Don't Look Back: The Story of Leroy 'Satchel' Paige,'' which we filmed in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, was a special pleasure, particularly because I'd played baseball in high school.”

“When we look at each other, we're the same family. You don't have to see black or Latino - we're one family. That's America.”

“'Avatar' was gorgeous. There are good stories in there, but when used in other movies they're similar to those violent video games. Characters using deadly weapons. The children follow these movies.”

“When '12 Years a Slave' got that much attention, everyone started to copy that. That story has to be told, but there are a lot more stories to be told than slavery.”

“I was at Woodstock. In the mud.”

“I believe the gift of acting is a gift from God, my oath to God, and I want to make sure on a daily basis that it is honed and deeply spiritual... I want to believe that the audience believes that my acting comes from this special place.”

“I was down in Wilmington, Delaware, doing 'The Desk Set' with Shirley Booth. I was at the DuPont Hotel. I walked out, and there was this grill next door called the New England Grill. I loved seafood. They said very nicely, 'We don't serve colored people.'”

“I had an Oscar, an Emmy, and yet I had this big hole in my soul.”

“I think more important than law is the hearts of people.”